


Of Dragon Hooch and the Ties that Bind Us

by Run



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Best Friends, Drinking, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 14:31:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11150370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Run/pseuds/Run
Summary: "Somewhere between his twelfth and thirteenth shot of Fantasy Fireball, Magnus realized he had made a mistake. "Carey and Magnus go for a drink after a training session. One drink turns into a contest, the contest turns into a confessional.





	Of Dragon Hooch and the Ties that Bind Us

Somewhere between his twelfth and thirteenth shot of Fantasy Fireball, Magnus realized he had made a mistake. The liquor hit the back of his numbed throat with a dull splash but his gut twisted and churned in protest as he swallowed it down. It had been years since his last drinking contest, longer than he could remember. Had anyone else challenged him (Taako, Merle, even Killian) he would have paced himself. Unfortunately-

“Looks like you’ve had your fill, big guy,” Carey said while slowly pouring herself another shot. “You might wanna throw in the towel.”

He couldn’t tamper his competitive streak, not with Carey. His formal training was over but Carey had approached him with an old technique she wanted to blow the dust off of. He had spent the next three hours straight being chased around the Danger Room while the Dragonborn jumped and climbed and practically _flew_ through him. By the end of the session, he could barely see straight. Carey had offered him a hand up off the floor and a drink for ‘being such a good sport.’

But when they arrived at the Crowded Stall, and Magnus placed his order, he asked for her preference. Old habits and all that, and he never much cared for drinking alone. Besides, they were already out on the town, might as well make it fun. In response, Carey only shrugged, ordered another shot, and smirked at the glass when it arrived.

“I’m Dragonborn Mags; human liquor can’t get the job done. Any old thing will do.” She then knocked back her shot without taking her taking her eyes off him. The glass hit the wood of the bar with a soft clink, dry as dust. “Don’t worry about keeping up.”

Magnus took his first shot of the night, barely wincing as it went down. “Have you seen me?” He gestured to the full breadth of his chest. “It’s going to take a Hell of a lot more than a few of these to put me under the table.” He pulled up a barstool and gestured to the empty one beside it. “So make yourself comfortable, Care.”  

Thirteen shots later, Magnus longed for death. He could feel the sweat on the back of his neck, the tight ache in his chest and the ruthless roil in his stomach but Pan help him, he wasn’t going down without a fight.

“You kidding me?” He raised a trembling finger to the apprehensive bartender. “I can do this all night Dragon Lady. Don’tchu worry ‘bout me.”

“Maaaags,” Carey said, putting her hands on his shoulders. Only up close could he see that her eyes were completely bloodshot. “You’re drunk as fuck. You gotta stop!”

“So are you!” He said, knocking her hands off. “Y’said- the thing ab- human booze doesn’t do dragon things.”

Carey laughed, nearly losing her balance on the stool. “I may have ‘xagerated a little bit. Higher tol’rence, still pretty drunk.” She swooned again, and Magnus reached out to put a steadying hand on her elbow. But Magnus’ aim, being addled by drink, was unsteady and the two fighters, their stools, and their combined dignity hit the floor with a resounding thud.

Magnus looked up to see the beleaguered bartender peaking over the side of the counter, possibly checking on their well being but more likely concerned with the likely damage to their stools.

“C’mon,” Carey said, staggering to her feet. “Let’s find a table. I want to put my head down immediately.”

They found a quiet spot in the corner of the bar. True to her word, Carey’s head was in her arms the moment they sat down. She sighed happily, closing her eyes. “This is nice. This is good. This was a good choice.”

Magnus leaned into the palm of his hand, sipping on the water the bartender had insistently sent them to the back with. “I like this place,” he said, eyes scanning the room. It looked to be a quiet night, most of the Bureau already in bed or on away missions. Carey and Magnus had supplied the most activity the bar had seen all night, save for Taako and Kravitz making a quick pit stop on their way to one of the observatory decks.  

“Be careful with him, bubbeleh ,” Taako had warned Carey while simultaneously sneaking a bottle of wine from under the barkeep’s nose. “Get this guy wasted and we’re staring down the barrel of a disgruntled ogre in an antiques shop.”

Kravitz, painfully aware of his partner’s tendency towards petty left, had steered them towards the door in a hurry, but paused to look back over his shoulder at Magnus. “In all seriousness, please try to keep yourselves safe. I’ve cleared my schedule for the evening, I don’t intend to spend it shepherding you to the ethereal plane.”

As they disappeared into the night, Magnus could have sworn he heard Taako giggle. It was nice, he thought. The thing they had going together.

“I’m glad there are bars on the moon,” Magnus told Carey. And then, after a brief pause- “Also how weird is it that we’re on the moon?”

“So weird,” Carey muttered, eyes still closed. They were silent for a few long moments, Magnus sipping and Carey resting. The quiet stretched so long that it almost startled him to hear her speak again.

“Can I ask you something?” Carey asked face still buried in the crooks of her arms. “Like, something kinda personal?”

Magnus set down his glass. “Shoot,” He said. “I think you already know everything I’ve got t’hide.”

Slowly, Carey brought her head up and puffed out a breath. The slits of her nostrils flared, and she shifted unsteadily in her chair. “What’s it like…” she started quietly. “What’s it like to be, y’know, married?”

The silence between them echoed in the already quiet bar. Magnus leaned back in his chair, arms folded, lips pressed together. The two of them were no strangers to the other’s past. They had shared war stories, battle scar origins and of course, he had talked about Julia before. But it still ached to explain what happened and Carey had never asked for details, so Magnus kept the particulars to himself.

“Oh shit,” Carey said, running her hands over her head. “Oh shit, Mags, I’m sorry. I fuckin’-“ she dropped her head back down to the tabletop, shaking the glasses. “I knew I shouldn’t have fuckin’ asked, and now you’re sad, and I fucked up man, I’m so sorry-“

“No, Care, it’s okay!” Magnus leaned forward to clasp Carey’s restless hands. “I love talking about her!”

Cautiously, Carey raised her head to look at the man across from her. “Really? It doesn’t hurt?”

“I mean,” Magnus took in a deep breath, settling back again. “I miss her every damn hour of every day, but I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t remember how much I loved her, right? I’m not offen’ed or anything. I was just…surprised I guess. Why do you wanna know now?”

Wincing a little on the way up, Carey straightened her back. She folded her arms on the table, looking anywhere but in Magnus’ direction. “I didn’t- I didn’t give Killian the ring you made.” As soon as she said it, her eyes darted back to him. “I want to! It’s gorgeous. It’s perfect. And we’ve talked about it. Oh man-“.

She scrubbed her hands over her eyes and down her long, scaly snout. Her eyes were clearing by the second, Magnus realized. Damn strong tolerance. “We’re both in the field all the time,” she said. “And you know what it’s like out there, the things we have to do on the daily. We’ve fought demon hoards together, we’ve taken down cults and cartels, and I know she can take care of herself but-“

Carey put her hands up, opening and closing them subconsciously, as if she were trying to pull her next few words out of the air. “Is that- is that the way you want to start a marriage? Always knowing that the other one might not…be okay?”

Magnus felt a tightening in his chest that had nothing to do with the liquor still coursing through his system. He sat back in his chair, clutching at the hallow ache he couldn’t place. “I under’sand,” he slurred. He shook his head, poured himself another glass of cold water and downed it in one gulp. He wanted to be sober for this, or as close to it as he could manage. “Julia and I waited until after the rebellion. We were engaged for so long but we always said we wanted to start our lives together in peace.”

He felt a familiar prickling in the corners of his eyes, but swallowed against the lump in his throat. “And I don’t blame us for that choice. It felt right at the time. But fuck,” he took a shaking breath in through his nose, looking up and away. “We were only married for three months. And if I had known I would have so little time to call her ‘my wife’, I would have married her the day I met her.”

As the first few tears started falling, Magnus felt a clawed hand on his bicep. Carey’s cheeks were already tear streaked, and her shoulders shook. He took her hand, squeezing, and leaned forward again, both of them now halfway across the table.

“You can’t always bank on the future, Care,” he said. “Sometimes, you just need to do what you want, and hope like Hell for the best. It’s all you can do.”

A shaky smile cracked on Carey’s face and she laughed through the tears. Without even realizing it, Magnus joined her. Unbeknownst to them, the bartender tilted their head and continued to clean the glasses, utterly baffled.

Carey was the first to sink back into her chair, pushing her tears away with the heel of her palm. “Damn,” she said quietly. “How long has it been since you cried? I feel like it’s been years.”

“Too long,” Magnus said.

A comfortable silence overtook them again, broken by occasional sniffling and the sound of empty water glasses being refilled. Carey spoke first again, but with a newly restored hesitance. “Could you…do you want to tell me about her? I feel like I never really asked.” She held up a clarifying hand. “Only if you want to, y’know.”

Magnus laughed a good, long laugh and got up from the table. “Abso-fucking-lutely. But not here.”

Carey was on her feet in a second without so much as a wobble to the side. “Aces,” she said before downing one last glass of water for the road. “If I’m going to resurrect this buzz, I need to grab some Dragon Hooch from my room.”

“Bullshit, there’s no such thing as Dragon Hooch,” Magnus said, meandering towards the door on swaying legs.

Carey ducked under his arm to guide him safely through the doorframe. “It’s a homebrew, the recipe has been passed down through the generations. Best keep your distance, I think smelling it might kill you.”   

After much stumbling, a compilation of shushing immediately followed by raucous laughter in the dormitories, and more than one run-in with a discontented security officer, Magnus and Carey made it to the observatory decks. The shining chrome building stood like an obelisk in the center of the moonbase, making an eternal, valiant effort to pierce the ink black void above them.

“For the record, if we come across Taako and Kravitz I am going home,” Carey said for the eighth time since Magnus told her of their intended destination. “I do not want to know what their dates look like up close and personal. I just don’t need that in my memory.”  

“Relax,” Magnus said dismissively. “We aren’t even going in the building.”

“Then why the fuck did we trek all the way out here Mags?!” Carey’s voice pitched up an octave, the dragon hooch already taking full effect. The flask in her hand was open, and she drank without seeming to notice her actions, keeping her wary eyes on Magnus the entire time.

With a wriggle of his eyebrow, Magnus reached into his pack and removed his grappling hook. “Fastest route to the roof.”

Had he been with anyone else, he wouldn’t have even suggested it. Logically, he knew this could easily get them both in deep shit at best and actually, physically dead at worst. But the second the hook hit the night air, Carey threw her head back and howled. Magnus didn’t even need to offer her a suggestion; she just clambered onto his back, locked her arms around his neck, and wrapped her legs around his torso. 

“If we die,” she yelled unnecessarily into his ear. “If we die Mags, I swear I’m gonna haunt your ass forever!”

“You can’t haunt me if we’re both dead! That’s science!” Magnus yelled back, firing the hook into the base of the lowest deck. “Now hang on, this is gonna get dicey!”

The wind whipped up around them as the ground dropped out from under Magnus’ feet. They crashed inelegantly into the side of the observatory and for a split second, Magnus thought he might have made a mistake. But the rumble of laughter in Carey’s chest pressed against his back steadied him, and with all the strength his alcohol muddled legs could muster, they propelled up into the open air.

It wasn’t a long trip. The chord of the grappling hook recoiled quickly and they reached the bottom of the observation deck in a matter of minutes. When Magnus got a strong foothold, Carey climbed up over his head and swung under the guardrail. She reached down for him between the bars and together they hauled Magnus up and over.

He landed on the chrome floor with a thud, but made no move to get up. Instead, he folded his hands behind his head and breathed a sigh of relief, staring up at the endless sky. Carey, who had been sitting with her legs folded under her, laid down beside him.

Magnus had always been a stargazer. Even as a rambunctious tot, he would sneak out into the backyard after bedtime and watch the moon go by, count the stars. But now, laying on what easily passed for the moon itself, the stars were uncountable. An endless stretch of black with sparkling pinpricks of light took up the whole scope of his vision and Magnus found himself with another lump in his throat, though this time he couldn’t put his finger on why.

His reverie was broken by a shiver from the body next to his. Carey had picked up a thick jacket from her private quarters, but lying still on the open deck wasn’t doing her cold blood any favors. Without a word, Magnus stretched out his arm, and offered it to her.

Carey smirked and rolled her eyes as if to say ‘I’m fine’, but scooted close and curled up against his broad side, sighing softly as he wrapped his arm around her shaking shoulders.

“Did you still want to tell me about Julia?” She asked after a little while had gone by.

Magnus nodded, unaware that Carey was too short to see it. “I think I’ve got a game though,” he said, and he felt Carey perk up against him. “I’ll tell you a fact about Julia and you tell me something about Killian. Anything you’d think she’d be comfortable with me knowing. And only if you want to, of course. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about Julia either way.”

Carey snorted but, for lack of a better word, snuggled closer. “I’m game. What do you wanna know?”

It wasn’t that Magnus had a well of stored up questions about Killian or her relationship with Carey. But the openness of the night’s conversation made him feel light in a way he hadn’t known in years. Not since the friends he had loved in the Craftsman’s Corridor did he feel this kind of bond. And it was the bond that made him curious.

“When did you first tell her that you loved her?” He asked.

“You’re such a saaaaaap,” Carey teased, her words slurring together. “We just got back- wait. No, yeah, okay. So. We just got back from a mission. We’d been regulating together for like…six months? I think? And I knew felt something big but I didn’t know how to tell her or if she was into it or whatever. And she-“ Carey coughed gruffly, and Magnus was all too familiar with the sound of a tightening throat. “She had gotten hurt. Not too bad but enough to send her to medical for a few days. I went to visit her. I meant to tell her as soon as I saw her awake but- but I just got mad! I said ‘you scared me!’ and she said ‘No need. I wouldn’t have died on you. Never on you.’ And before I knew it, I’d kissed her. Right there in the middle of the med bay.”

Carey giggled at the memory, at her own drunken recollection of it. “I guess that isn’t the first time I said it out loud but it was like, the first time I told her. Y’know?”  

Magnus smiled. The emotions coming off of Carey were contagious.

“Okay big guy,” she said. “Same question.”

The memory hit him like a freight train, almost knocking the air out of his lungs.  It had been so long since he remembered. “We were outside,” he told her. “We had been…seeing each other for a few weeks but I swear, I knew I loved her from day one. But that day, I was going to her shop-“

“She had her own shop? Wicked.” Carey said with approval.

“She was the best damn blacksmith in Raven’s Roost,” Magnus said, a familiar pride welling up in his chest. “And her father, Stephen, and I, we always went to her when he needed a repair or a new piece of ‘quipment. And I swear it was a normal day. I went to her shop to pick up an order of nails and she came outside holding this box, her welder’s mask pushed up over her face. And she handed me the box of nails and I opened it-“

Magnus felt like he was filling up with hot air. “She had written a note. All it said was ‘build me something beautiful’. And I pulled her close, kissed her, and I said ‘I love you Jules.’ I didn’t even know what I was saying; I just had to say it. And she laughed, she was so happy; I didn’t know I could make her that happy. And right there I swore I would make her laugh like that every day…for the rest of our lives.”

Carey wrapped her arm around his chest and squeezed him tight. “I bet she had a great laugh.”

A few tears leaked out of Magnus’ eyes, sliding down the sides of his face and into his air. “The best laugh.” He said.

Carey relaxed her hold but left her arm draped over Magnus’ torso. He appreciated the weight of it and made a point to tell her so.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m super buff. Also, your game sucks and it makes me wanna cry.”

“Sorry,” Magnus said. “If it makes you feel any better, I almost always wanna cry.”

“That makes me feel the opposite of better!” Carey smacked him lightly, barely grazing his beard. “Ask me something that isn’t gonna be sad.”

 “Okay, alright, I’ve got one,” Magnus said as he used his free hand to scrub his face, drying the few tears still cooling on his cheeks. “What’s the duck thing all about? Where the Hell did that come from?”

Carey snorted and rolled away from his side, but she kept her head comfortably pillowed on his bicep. The result was a completely diagonal Carey, her upper body close to Magnus’ warmth while her feet hung free over the side of the deck. She smiled, kicking and twisting her feet in open air. “She just thinks they’re cute,” she said. “Like, they’re ducks and they’re cute so she likes them?” Her voice pitched up again but this time in a jovial hysteria. “There’s literally no origin story! She just really likes ducks! She’s such a dork!”

She threw her arm over her eyes as another fit of giggles overtook her body. “Oh man, she’s so cute Magnus. You don’t understand, you don’t get to see it but she’s. So. Cute.” 

As the laugh subsided, a mammoth sigh escaped her, long and lovesick. She turned slowly onto her side, now facing Magnus but with her eyes still cast skyward. “I love her so much. So, so much. It makes me dizzy.”

“That might be the hooch talking,” Magnus offered but he knew the truth. He remembered all too well the lightheaded buoyancy of a love fully realized.

“Speaking of,” Carey pulled out her flask again. The liquid steamed ominously as she unscrewed the cap but that did nothing to deter her from taking a long swig. She wiped the residue off her lips with the back of her hand and returned the flask to a concealed compartment in her boot. Magnus had always been envious of her clothing, full of secrets and a thousand hidden pockets. Master thief privileges, she had called them.  She said she would teach him how to sew his own Rogue’s coat in due time, but he had to earn it-

“Want to know a secret?” Carey snapped him out of his thoughts with a conspiratory whisper. Magnus turned onto his side, sliding his arm out from under her head, their eyes meeting for the first time in what felt like hours. The light from inside the observatory glinted off of Carey’s scales, framing her face in a hazy halo. He wanted to tell her she was beautiful. Drunk as he was, he wanted to tell her everything.

Instead he scooted closer, half expecting a pop quiz in thieves’ cant. “Yeah?” He said.

Carey cupped her clawed hands to her mouth, leaning as close as possible without getting on top of him again. “You’re my best friend,” she whispered.

His heart had been through so much over the course of a single night. But those words, that quiet confession, it made him feel something entirely novel. He felt soft, like everything inside him had melted at once, like he was bubbling and gooey and _overflowing_. And it was so good.

He reeled her back into his arms, delighting in the burst of laughter against his chest.  “Can I tell you a secret?” He murmured into the crown of her head.

Carey twisted her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. “Yeah?” She responded with childlike giddiness.

“You’re my best friend,” he told her.

She pulled back to look at him. If she had eyebrows, Magnus assumed they would be raised. “But- Merle and Taako?”

Magnus puffed out his cheeks and shook his head quickly. “I mean, I love them, obviously. They’re like…family, I guess. The weirdest, most cobbled together family I’ve ever been a part of but it’s different y’know?” He looked down at her, smiling wide enough to split his face in two. “It’s different with you.”

Carey closed her eyes, tucking her head back under his chin. Magnus rolled onto his back, bringing her with him with a good-humored shout. They settled together, and he stared down the stars again. In spite of everything, even without all the people he wished could be there with him, he was so glad to be laying on an observatory deck, on the campus of a shadowy agency, on the goddamn moon, in the arms of his best friend.  

For the first time in years, Magnus was satisfied to be exactly where he was.

 

-

Taako passed the half empty bottle of wine to the spectral figure beside him. Below them, two familiar voices attempted to whisper and failed dismally. He leaned his head on Kravitz’s shoulder and sighed. “Dorks.”  

 


End file.
